I want to start this post off with the statement that I believe ALL birth is beautiful. That all birth is empowering and that all mommas who come out on the other side are rockstars no matter how they birthed their babies.
Now that we have that out of the way, I wanted to share with you guys a little birth story. One near and dear to my heart, and that is the story of how my first born daughter came to be and how she came earthside.
I feel it is important to put our story out there because I remember searching high and low for positive birth stories when I was preparing for the birth of babe #1. Let me tell you, they were very hard to find unless they were coming from a momma who had a home birth or delivered at a birth center....neither of which were in my plans.
I wanted to have an unmedicated hospital birth with as little intervention as possible. I knew a positive mindset going into labor and delivery played a huge role in how our story would play out, so finding others who talked positively about birth was big for me.
Growing up, many of us are taught to fear birth and how our bodies will respond. Why, I am not exactly sure, because woman have been doing this since the beginning of time. Regardless, I think we need to change the narrative for future generations. As a RN who specialized in Postpartum, I can say that over 75% or more of my patients delivered with an epidural, and most of them did, not because they "wanted to", but because they felt like they "had to" in order to deliver their babies.
So, if you have been on the hunt, let this be the positive hospital birth story you may be searching for. Our birth was not perfect or without complications, but it was positive.
Let's start from the very beginning.
March 2016
Our journey started out fairly uneventful, as I am sure most of yours who are reading this did. Enjoying all the "practice" and hoping for a surprise two pink lines. Which cracks me up thinking about now because I don't know how anyone accidently has a baby and all the stars in the universe align in that way. After about 6 months of actively tracking and trying I started to feel like something might be "wrong". I myself am a product of science and I am no stranger to the world of infertility so the thought crossed my mind often now that we were praying to see a big fat positive on a home test.
Lucky for me, I was working in the lactation clinic at the time and right down the hall from my office was the REI Chief so I was able to walk right into his office and ask him for assistance. He was willing to draw some labs to check a few things out and we went from there.
We ended up finding out that I had an egg store of an individual who has yet to go through puberty. Through other testing we found out that I have polycystic ovaries and rarely ovulate. This was a devastating blow but we were happy we had some answers and could move forward with fertility treatments.
We started out with Clomid and timed intercourse with no luck. I wasn't producing enough mature follicles, which also meant I still wasn't dropping eggs, which are kind of half of what you need to make a baby. So, we quickly moved on to injectables to prepare for our first round of Intrauterine Insemination (IUI).
Our first procedure was completed on my 25th birthday on my lunch break at work.
I remember thinking that this HAD to be a good luck sign!
The two week wait was pure torture, but, I was right and two weeks later on my husbands lunch break we checked my lab results and found out we were going to be parents for the first time.
(Fun fact, if you haven't figured out, many of our most memorable moments take place on our lunch breaks....we also got married in the hospital chapel on our lunch break, go figure)
I still remember telling my husband to push the enter button for us to see the numbers because I was to afraid to do it myself. It was right then and there that I fell in love with a bean, a group of cells, half of him and half of me. At 5 weeks gestation, we got her first picture!
That little circle? Yup, that was our baby who I was already madly in love with.
May 2017
Fast forward 9 months we had a fairly unremarkable pregnancy, except for a kidney complication they found on the anatomy scan at 20 weeks (she would later have surgery at 11 months old to correct the issue). Two weeks before my due date around 5pm while we were at our friends house, my water broke while sitting on a decorative pillow on their living room floor.
I had just got done telling my friend, who is also a pediatrician, that I felt like I was going to go past my due date. When, pop! I felt it and turned to her with panic written all over my face I am sure and calmly said "I think my water just broke."
5 PM
I immediately started to freak out because my mom's flight down to NC, where we were stationed at the time, wasn't until next week. She was the first person my husband called and she thought he was joking. This was my parents first grandbaby and I had planned for her to be in the room when she was born, but babies run on their own time and her time was now. She was determined to give it her best effort to get her flight changed and make it for the birth.
The second person we called was our amazing doula. I think every woman should have a doula at her side during labor and delivery. I can confidently say that I would have had a very different birth experience had it not been for her. She encouraged us to head home get all of our stuff in the car and try to get contractions moving at home before going into the hospital. I was not currently having any substantial contractions at the time.
We headed home and I showered, had dinner and tried all the "tricks" to get things moving on our own. After about 6 hours with little progress we decided it was time to head to the hospital for them to confirm my water did break and to help augment labor....with the dreaded P word that shall not be named!
By this time my mom confirmed she would be on the next flight out in the morning. We were optimistic she would make it since this was our first baby and she didn't seem like she was in a rush to make her grand entrance yet anyway.
Midnight
We arrived on labor and delivery, they confirmed my water did in fact break and that I was already 4cm dilated and 80% effaced. This was pretty exciting news that I was already dilated and that it was GO TIME!
2 AM
We got settled in our room and they started the Pitocin around 2:30AM.
This obviously was not part of my plan and I was bummed because of all the negative stories I had previously heard about augmentation. I also had to be continuously monitored now because of the Pitocin, which meant I was confined to the room (really only to the bedside because the cords aren't that long) and I couldn't use the shower as a source of pain relief. Both of which were NOT part of our birth dream.
I just kept remembering the one positive story though that I grew up hearing and that was my mom's THREE unmedicated births all of which were augmented with pitocin.
I was confident in my body, that this was what it was meant to do and that I could do anything for less than 15 hours. I knew it would be less than that because you only had 24 hours to deliver once your water broke before you needed a c-section per our hospitals protocol. I had a deadline that I knew, no matter how it ended, it would end.
I could do it.
4:30 AM
Contractions were very intense at this point and I needed additional support to get through them. Our doula had arrived and was providing measures to help baby drop and prepare for delivery. Most of my time during active labor was spent in the squatting position on the side of the bed during contractions with hip squeeze and massage for pain relief.
7 AM
Around this time I had moved to the bathroom to sit on the toilet. NOT because I actually had to go, but because I wanted this baby OUT! This is a great position to help your body naturally relax allowing the baby to move down through the birth canal. I progressed quickly and my doula could see by my body language that I had hit transition and it was time to get out of the bathroom before I delivered in the toilet.
7:30 AM
I remember telling my husband that I felt like I was going to die. My doula assured me that it was because I was in transition and would be meeting our baby soon, not that I was actually dying. Our nurse came in and checked me.
I was at 8cm!
They prepped the room for delivery and called in my doctor.
By the time they got everything ready I was having the urge to push and had progressed to 10cm in about 10 min. It felt like only a few seconds in my mind.
7:58 AM
It was time to PUSH.
After 3 hours of active labor and 20 min of pushing, we welcomed our beautiful first born daughter earth side, exactly 2 weeks before her due date. The most beautiful 6lb 11oz baby I had ever laid eyes on. Being a postpartum nurse I have seen thousands of newborns, mind you, but I might have been a bit biased with this one though.
All I kept saying was "Thank God she is here, I can't believe it. I did it!"
We were now officially a family of three and my heart was exploding.
No one can prepare you for what birth is going to be like. You can read all the books and do all the research, but until you go through it, it is hard to comprehend or imagine what it is going to be like.
The pain is unimaginable, the ring of fire 100% exists, you will want to quit (and maybe feel like you are going to die), but that is when the magic happens. Just keep reminding yourself, it will end. One way or another, it all will end and you will come out the other side happier than ever before and probably decide to do it all over again a few years down the road!
I believe that Mommas are born.
A new me surfaced that day almost 4 years ago. A stronger, more confident version of my former self. I had the mindset going into labor and delivery that I could do it unmedicated with minimal intervention, but to actually follow through, I felt extremely empowered by the experience.
Was it perfect? No.
Was it positive? Hell yeah!
YOU too can do hard things. We are warriors and that's why God gave us the responsibility to bring new life into this world. He knows we have the power to do hard things.
So if you decide to deliver in a cabin in the woods or at a hospital, birth your baby vaginally or by
c-section, have a medicated or unmedicated birth, you are a badass and deserve to be celebrated and feel like the most powerful human being on the planet.
Be proud of your birth story.
It's plain and simple.
Honey, be you.
XOXO,
Momma Mageed
P.S. For those of you wondering, my momma missed her birth by 2 hours! Don't worry, we made sure she was there for the next one.
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